poem: I Am An American

I Am An American

An American flag makes its stand on my shelf;
Some "Vote For" buttons embellish my cap.
But what has befallen my cherished America
That took in refugees over four centuries? --
Motley collections of gentry, of inmates,
Desperate for tolerance, land, or adventure --
Pirates and trappers, Protestants, Catholics,
English, French, Spanish, Germans, Italians.
Merchants and scientists, Irish and Jews.

Wave upon wave, from Europe they flocked
To claw out new lives, to follow their gods,
To bring "civilization" without understanding.
Some thought the lands were there for the taking,
Some thought the natives were theirs for the breaking,
Some never questioned, or wondered, or thought.
But the natives were dying of smallpox and typhus,
So natives from Africa had to be bought.
And the noble masses that yearned to breathe free
Were smothering in holds of slavers' boats.

Two churning centuries raised expectations,
A new kind of life, a noble experiment.
Where turkeys still ruled over fields and barrens,
Up sprang new homesteads, then gracious mansions.
Where once had walked bison, beaver and bear,
Backyards were stacked with ax-split logs.
Yes, it was peaceful -- the slaves in their beds --
But "the land of the free" was riddled with lies.
Like Holsteins a-swaggering, flicking their tails,
And batting their lashes at noseeum flies,
Comfortable Americans, feeling quite civilized,
Distilled their grains and averted their eyes.

Came 1812, with conscriptions by England;
Francis Scott Key penned his four-verse poem.
While he watched for a Banner at Fort McHenry
He prayed for triumph in the land of the free.
He presumed our cause was just and unstained.
But America was marching, its focus was drifting,
Were we out to conquer Canada, drugged by Anácreon?

Our roads are replete with historical markers,
Of bloody battlefields, "hanging oaks";
Kudzu has crawled over countless graves
And buried the lessons we never learned.
Do we simply avoid them and notice nothing?
America the sanitized, America the brazen --
Not a regime I can feel proud of!
Yet it's pounding within me. I'm an American.!
Where is my country I deeply love?

We pledge allegiance with hand over heart,
Salute our forests, our wheat fields, our cactus,
Celebrate our Fourth and watch it all grow.
And aren't we the freest, all options open?
In my bygone days, oh, what did I know?
Ours such great splendor! But under the surface
Inhumanity and hatred received steady practice ...

Sixty years back, or seventy-five,
A different culture was then alive:
Cardinals' "Peews" and "Bwirdy bwirdy, bwirdy bwirdies"
And reedy "Ow-owdel-ows" of oldsquaw ducks
Echoed long distances over the ponds.
There were long evenings rocking, listening to katydids,
Eery "hoo-hoo"-ings of passenger trains,
America the frog-filled, the tranquil, the peaceful,
America the starry-eyed Cassiopeia.

We'd gather for picnics, smoke our own barbecue.
Uncles called squaredances, Grandpas played fiddle,
Quartets sang barbershop, some rousing gospel,
At church socials, hayrides ... don't forget sewing bees.
Then, we played baseball, read aloud poetry,
Visited cousins and played the piano.

We all knew our neighbors and everyone's relatives,
Pitched in to help for illness and funerals.
Cared for our cousins as if they were brothers,
Back in America, America the neighborly.
How the future twisted in the years ahead:
Born on third base with a mouthful of corn flakes --
It's so un-American to live spoon-fed!
Is this what Big Agro has brought us to?

Hardly a person seems to be worried
That lobbyists chipped all our greatness away.
Can I join a chapter of Americans Anonymous,
Rekindle the dreams from my bygone days?
Can I plow and plant a big family garden?
Zoning and hi-rises take that away!
Here in the city, we tolerate no chickens,
No self-sufficiency, just proud compliance.
Pay, if you want to relearn how they did it --
How homesteads survived, let alone flourished,
Made their own tools, sewed their own clothing.
Too late to go back -- it just gets more crowded.
America's drowned in a world grown more crooked.

Ah! but we've learned, through our DNA,
That race never had any basis in fact,
We've been cousins to neighbors we never knew.

Crazy Horse' statue will some day break loose
To rear up in a rage for his native land --
For his peoples extinguished or sent into poverty.
"See what these immigrants did to my country!"
America the two-faced, America the stolen,
Land of broken treaties and forkéd tongues.
But the great chief may hear only pain and confusion,
"O say, what awards has this Crazy Horse won?"

- Leslie G. Harper
April 25, 2008